Front Microbiol. 2024 May 31;15:1416879. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1416879. eCollection 2024.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Infant botulism is caused by botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT), which is mainly produced by Clostridium botulinum. However, there is a lack of longitudinal cohort studies on infant botulism. Herein, we have constructed a cross-sectional and longitudinal cohort of infants infected with C. botulinum. Our goal was to reveal the differences in the intestinal microbiota of botulism-infected and healthy infants as well as the dynamic changes over time through multi-omics analysis.
METHODS: We performed 16S rRNA sequencing of 20 infants’ stools over a period of 3 months and conducted whole genome sequencing of isolated C. botulinum strains from these laboratory-confirmed cases of infant botulism. Through bioinformatics analysis, we focused on the changes in the infants’ intestinal microbiota as well as function over time series.
RESULTS: We found that Enterococcus was significantly enriched in the infected group and declined over time, whereas Bifidobacterium was significantly enriched in the healthy group and gradually increased over time. 18/20 isolates carried the type B 2 botulinum toxin gene with identical sequences. In silico Multilocus sequence typing found that 20u00B0C. botulinum isolates from the patients were typed into ST31 and ST32.
CONCLUSION: Differences in intestinal microbiota and functions in infants were found with botulism through cross-sectional and longitudinal studies and Bifidobacterium may play a role in the recovery of infected infants.
PMID:38881667 | PMC:PMC11176563 | DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2024.1416879
